maze through the scorch ~ newt²

CHAPTER SIX | can you run?

When Rae woke up, she had no recollection of how she got in the room. But it wasn't her lack of remembering that was bothering her, it was the fact that her lower back and legs were aching in pain. Rae tried to sit up, but the pain didn't stop. She stopped trying when three doctors entered the room. Rae watched them as they went to the table with the computer. One of the men had jet black hair, sprinkled with a few white hairs. He was tall and lanky but had a defined jawline. The only woman of the three was very short, probably around 5'1". And the last man looked a lot like...

"Fry?" Rae asked softly, too quiet for any of the doctors to hear her over their work.

"Her brain activity seems normal although her parietal lobe is on alert. Heartbeat is at 162 BPM. Could be stress. BP is 82/55," said one of the doctors.

"Hey, what am I doing here?" Rae croaked loud enough for the female doctor to hear.

"Just running some extra tests. That's all." The woman wheeled herself to Rae, checking the monitors and IV on the side of the gurney. Rae hadn't noticed all the machines she was strapped into. Her eyes followed from the doctor to her own arm where a needle and a clear tube were attached. She followed the clear tube until her eyes landed on a small machine. Almost silent puffs of air exited the machine as a small knob turned clockwise, and then back the other direction. Each time the knob completed one rotation, a drop of translucent blue liquid spilled into a tiny vial hanging from the machine.

"Are you feeling tired?" the female doctor, Sinley was her name, asked, breaking through Rae's silent staring. The girl turned to the doctor and shook her head slightly. Instead, the woman turned to her colleagues, saying, "Increase the flow."

At first, Rae didn't understand what she was talking about, but then it hit her like a truck. "Wait, no, please don't. I just want to see my friends," the redhead whimpered as the older man meddled with the machine.

"I'm afraid that won't be happening."

Just as the doctor increased the flow, Rae felt her stomach churn and it wasn't from nervousness, but the unbearable pain that erupted in the same places again. Throwing her head to the side, Rae regurgitated yellow stomach acid. Her body was so drained that the only thing in her stomach was... nothing.

As the doctors rushed to clean up the mess, Rae curled into a ball on the gurney, tucking her knees into her chest as she clutched her stomach. She faced away from the doctors to look at the glass pane on the other side of the gurney. All Rae wanted was to be left alone and the doctors' loud talking was only making her more agitated.

Rae didn't know how long she'd been in this room or how long she'd been away from Newt. What she did know was that these people were experimenting on her, the same way the Creators did to them in the Maze.

As Rae was getting lost in her thoughts, her mind took over. Rae's eyes fluttered to stay open, but she was slipping in and out of consciousness. As Rae struggled to keep her eyes open, she could make out a brunette woman, maybe in her mid-40s, in a white lab coat approaching her cot. Rae didn't know who she was, but she felt like she knew the woman. The woman stroked Rae's hair as her eyes slowly drooped down.

"It's okay," the woman whispered to her. "Don't be scared. Just think of the positive memories and this will all go away soon." The whole room was a giant blur of white and gray. The woman's voice, although soothing, was already starting to fade into the background noise until Rae's vision turned black.

She wasn't even aware when the door to the room was kicked open by a bunch of teens. The Gladers and Finn stood at the doorway as Thomas pointed his newly acquired weapon at the doctors as he yelled, "Where are they?"